People have been horrified at weekend news reports of the deaths of an estimated 900 people in the Mediterranean. Many of those people died because unscrupulous traffickers locked refugees, including women and children, in the hold of the ship that sank. Some 1,500 citizens have drowned on their way to Europe in 2015, which is 50 times more than at this point in 2014. There are reports of other ships having sunk in the past 24 hours.

The images of refugees being rescued are now a nightly sight on our television screens. These people are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Nigeria and other places. They are also fleeing famine and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Like the Irish through the centuries, they are prosecuted, persecuted, injured, hungry and looking for a better life. We should not lose sight of the fact that their horrors are a direct result of Europe's colonial record over the years and the much more recent policies of the West towards north Africa and the Middle East.

Italy has urged the EU to act to prevent further loss of life. EU foreign Ministers met and produced a ten-point plan which, in my humble opinion, is inadequate for dealing with this humanitarian disaster. For example, doubling funds to the EU border patrol mission will not provide the search and rescue operations needed in the face of this crisis. I ask the Taoiseach to outline to the Dáil the message he will bring to our EU partners and the proposals he will argue for at Thursday's meeting of the European Council.

As we speak, a commemoration march from Strokestown to the east coast is taking place. It commemorates the 1,490 people who walked the route during the Famine and boarded coffin ships for Canada, upon which more than 700 of them died. A point made yesterday was that this replicates what is happening in the Middle East. This is simply appalling in the sense of humanity. The fact that it is on the Mediterranean exacerbates the situation, because people's lives are lost through drowning.

Some 1 million people have left Syria and moved to south Lebanon or Jordan, but there is no humanitarian plan to deal with that scale of migration. There are countries without boundaries in Africa, where people move from Somalia through Libya to the coast to get to Europe. The scale of this is unprecedented in terms of numbers. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Flanagan, representing the Government, and the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, attended the meeting in Luxembourg yesterday. There was agreement from the European Ministers for foreign affairs and security and justice on the ten-point plan. President Tusk has called a meeting of the European Council on Thursday to deal with this.

Deputy Adams's question is perfectly valid. It depends upon the scale of investment in search and rescue operations and humanitarian relief. The second part of that concerns what it is possible to do in vast areas that are on a knife edge and where all kinds of cruelty against humanity are practised. These people, desperate in their destitution, are arriving at the shores of the Mediterranean, are put, in some cases, on ships without captain, steward or compass, and are doomed before they ever sail. This is an appalling disgrace. It will not be sorted out at the European Council meeting on Thursday, but Italy and Malta are to be commended for what they did. Italy had the Mare Nostrum project in place and now needs assistance in terms of surveillance, interception, rescue and humanitarian relief.

There is a deeper and much more challenging problem in the vast countries where large numbers of people are being treated savagely by warring factions, a problem that is not confined to Libya alone. Ireland will make its case on Thursday and will continue to offer humanitarian assistance. A figure of 5,000 refugees has been mentioned, and Ireland will play its part as it has always done. In many years gone by, people from this country went wherever they might be welcome, which is one of the reasons we have such an extensive diaspora of descendants.

This is an immediate problem. Children, babies and helpless people are being loaded onto boats at this moment in time by unscrupulous racketeers who know that the complete inadequacy of the vessels they are putting them on dooms them to the probability of drowning in the Mediterranean when all they want is to flee from persecution, savagery and death and look beyond the immediate shores to a place where they might have hope and a new life. The challenge is of an unprecedented scale for all countries in Europe. For our part, in terms of the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Justice and Equality and Defence, we will contribute in whatever way we can to dealing with this issue.

I tried to moderate my question because I do not want to make any political points out of such a serious issue, but I asked the Taoiseach to outline for us the message he will bring to our European partners and the proposals for which he will argue. He did not do that. He told me about a commemorative march from Strokestown. I commend those on that march. The Taoiseach is very familiar with the walk from Louisburgh known as the Trail of Tears, a road I have walked. Famously, Native Americans assisted Irish people from the Taoiseach's county. If I recall correctly, it was the Choctaw tribe, who did more in their day for the Irish people than we are doing now for others. The problem is a result of direct interference by Western powers in the affairs of the countries involved. People are being persecuted and are fleeing for a better life. They are trying to reach a better place to live.

It has been reported that the EU will seek to stop them at sea. Is that true? What is the view of the Government on that? Will people be detained in camps in Libya? The Taoiseach mentioned the fever camps. I visited those in Grosse Île on the eastern coast of Canada and North America, where our people died. What happened in the era of the coffin ships is happening now.

The proposal to resettle 5,000 immigrants in EU states is a drop in the ocean considering that hundreds of thousands are desperate to travel. Reference is made to a package of return travel to where the individuals are trying to flee from. What is this? Ryanair? The resettlement of 1,200 people in 14 years is what we have achieved. The treatment of people in direct provision centres is not a matter of which the Government or its predecessors can be proud. Will the Taoiseach accept that as a nation that has experienced conflict, famine, forced emigration, fever camps, death and the spectre of coffin ships, Ireland needs to strengthen search and rescue operations through a joint effort involving EU member states? Does he accept that the European Union as a whole must provide more safe and legal routes to Europe for those who are now being forced to take dangerous journeys in the first place and ensure they have access to international protection? The very least the Taoiseach could do is inform the Dáil of the proposals he will put at the meeting to help alleviate the plight of these people.

Yes, I am aware of the Walk of Tears and the incredible story of the Choctaw Indians who sent us the equivalent of $10,000 for famine relief.

The purpose of the meeting of the European Council on Thursday is to endorse the ten-point plan put together yesterday by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministers for security and home affairs in Luxembourg. Clearly, there is an immediate catastrophe facing us. People are being loaded onto unseaworthy craft now on the shores of Libya. Many of them have travelled from Somalia, Mali and other locations, and others are fleeing the conflicts in both Syria and Libya. They all want to cross the Mediterranean, and Malta, Lampedusa and Italy are the first ports of call. Clearly, this is a matter of the utmost seriousness. What can Ireland do about this? It can contribute with other bigger nations with greater resources. The Deputy is well aware that what is in our own DNA, given our history, leads us to be one of the most humanitarian countries around, proportionately speaking. We will continue to be that. As I stated, between the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Minister for Justice and Equality and the Minister for Defence, we will contribute to this debate on Thursday in the hope of saving the lives of those who have just left the shores of Libya in craft that will never reach the far side of the Mediterranean. The ten-point plan exists for everybody.

The pirates, smugglers and unscrupulous people are using their deadly opportunity to make money by putting innocent people, who are fleeing war, rape, pillage and all kinds of inhumanity, on boats to cross the Mediterranean from the Libyan shore in the knowledge that there is sometimes neither skipper, captain, steward nor compass to get them to the far side. Mare Nostrum did save many lives. I expect that the meeting on Thursday will result in a much more focused and immediate response in terms of greater surveillance, activity and humanitarian relief and a greater opportunity to search for and rescue these innocent people. From a political point of view, addressing the causes of the desperation of so many people, requiring them to leave for Europe, must be dealt with in the bigger political field. As the Deputy is well aware, that is an enormous challenge.